How to become Google Associate Cloud Engineer?

This blog covers my journey from organising the Google Cloud Study Jams to becoming a Associate Cloud Engineer.

Being a Developer Student Club Lead for MITAOE, I organised first Cloud Study Jam in April 2019. At that time I was beginner in Google Cloud Platform. I was practicing the Qwiklabs from March 2019 which was organised by GDG Pune.

I started exploring Google Cloud Platform as it was fun to explore with the help of Qwiklabs. The score based learning makes it more interesting to learn. Also it gave me Hands-on practice for Google Cloud Platform. Practical Knowledge is the key to pass Associate Cloud Engineer Exam. The questions were more often like a mini scenario rather than direct questions. So you had to know how to apply your knowledge to that particular use case. If you fail to understand the scenario then it will get more difficult to answer the question. This makes the exam more of practical knowledge which requires experience in Google Cloud Platform. If you are not experienced in GCP I will suggest to gain some experience before appearing for the exam.

After completing the Qwiklabs I was more curious about the world of GCP so, I started Coursera Courses on Google Cloud Platform. These courses are having well-curated content. The courses will cover all the basic concepts in GCP also they will help you to gain knowledge about some specific topics like Security, IOT, Kubernetes, etc. This helped me to understand the concepts of GCP which played important role to understand things. I don’t think any of the courses were particularly focused on the certification itself. But, it is useful towards understanding GCP which obviously helps with the certification. So it’s always a better practice to get your basics clear and attempt the in-lesson quizzes to gain confidence.

After completing bunch of Coursera courses and hundreds of Qwiklabs I started exploring some scenarios and problems based on Google Cloud Platform. Getting practical knowledge is most important factor in order to understand the questions. This helped me to clear most of the concepts which I learned previously. Also this makes sure that you have covered all the concepts in GCP. Best way to get your queries answered is Official Documentation for Google Cloud Platform. This will help you to get the exact solution for your problem. It also refers to Google recommended practices which are important while answering the questions.

While attempting, the exam was tougher than I thought it would be. I wasn’t very sure if I would pass while writing it, though I was fairly confident before the exam. GKE, GCE, IAM, AppEngine, Cloud Storage, Deployment Manager, Networking, Stackdriver, BigQuery these all topics were covered in the exam. The exam is MCQ based and total 50 questions were there. Options were confusing and more than one option seemed to be correct. Reading the official documentation helps here and one need to answer the Google Recommended Practice while choosing the correct option.

If you are having any doubts while preparing for the Associate Cloud Engineer exam please reach out to me on Linkedin.

I am really thankful to Mahaveer Muttha, Swapnil Jathar, Pranoti Nandurkar for organising Cloud Study Jams in GDG Pune. Also, Nikhil Raichur for helping us with curated content and amazing opportunities under Developer Student Club. Special Shout-out to Antrixsh Gupta for helping me out to clear the GCP concepts.